Affinity Creative Suite Anyone?

[KageRyu]

I was curious if anyone here had worked with the Affinity creative Suite? My particular photoshop us getting long in the tooth (predates CC by many years) and with recent developments in Adobe's terms and licenses I have no intention of ever going CC. I am looking for a good, robust alternative. While I do know my way around GiMP, adn I have aversion that emulates Photoshop, I find GiMP...counter intuitive in a lot of regards (especially it wanting to save in it's own proprietary format constantly). So I am wondering if anyone has made any substantial use of Affinity, and could give any opinions, reviews, etc... I would much rather hear from fellow creatives who have used it than try to decide based on the selling points posted on the website. Ideally I would like to hear from anyone who has used both Affinity and Photoshop with some comparisons on good and bad and how easy to adapt to the workflow would be?

 

[robert952]

Are you looking to replace PS? Or a whole 'creative suite?' I haven't used Affinity so don't know its capabilities.

If photo editor, I highly recommend PaintShop Pro (PSP). I've used it since V1.0 as shareware. I find it intuitive and does everything I ever need and then some things I've used periodically. (It uses Adobe ABR files easily for brushes.)

Before retiring, the company standard was Adobe CC. I hated InDesign, found PS to be less than intuitive and required to many steps to do simple tasks (like straightening images). Since I have PSP, I only dabbled in GIMP but didn't find anything PSP couldn't do. (Well, there is that free aspect.)

I bucked the whole Adobe CC using PSP, MS Publisher, and Corel PDF Fusion when I had to publish training manuals and similar support material.

I did get use to Adobe Captivate for creating online training modules. It was the only Adobe product I used regularly because it tied in with our corporate training and tracking software. The audio editing and

So far, Corel hasn't jumped on the subscription band wagon and once you are a user, their upgrade prices are reasonable. Pricing in reasonable (IMO) at US $47.99 for just PSP and $59.99 and includes PhotoMirage, Painter Essentials 8, Multicam capture, and others as a bundle. (I don't have the sea to sky workspace, but it looks like it's aimed at underwater photography and drone photography.) They do have an addon called Vision FX for AI editing of images. (Not up to date on that add-on.)

Hope this helps.

 

[KageRyu]

I'd really like to know about if anyone has first hand knowledge of Affinity and how it's workflow compares with Photoshop. Hence why I asked about Affinity.

 

[Stezza]

I use Affinity along with PS
for basic photo/image editing Affinity Photo does most of what PS does but not the AI stuff..
you can at the moment get the Affinity suite on a 6 month try out which is pretty awesome so would suggest you try it out. After six months you should have a good idea whether it suits you or not.

 

[3WC]

Affinity is awesome. I don't have much experience with the photo editor but Designer is a great sub for Illustrator, my wife loves the other programs too.

 

[CSP]

All the Affinity apps are really good alternatives to the Adobe products. If you're used to working in Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator you'll find the Affinity apps can do most of the same stuff, the glaring exception being Adobe's AI features. I found it slow at first because some of the tools are accessed differently than I was used to, and some aspects are still a little clunky, even in Version 2.

Having said that, Affinity does some things better than the Adobe apps, and all three - Photo, Design and Publisher - are very well integrated. They're offering a 6-month free trial at the moment so you can take your time to find your way around.

 

[Electro-harpist]

Before you think about the workflow, use the free trial to look at the UI size on your intended monitor. The UI is un-scalable, and may thus feel unusably small with a big monitor.

 

[KageRyu]

The free trial is not an option right now as I do not have a machine that can run it. I am looking at a newer machine hopefully before the end of the year but it would not be until October at the soonest. I was trying to learn more from Users about affinity, such as actually how the interface stacks up against Photoshop as my biggest issue with tools like GiMP and PSP is how significantly different working with layers is. My Photoshop is a very old version without any AI tools so that is not a concern. I was trying to decide if I want to pick up affinity while it is on sale and then when I get the new machine I will already have it.

 

[Ken1171]

I have been transitioning from Corel PaintShop to Affinity Photo for a while, and now that you asked about it, I just realized I haven't used PaintShop in a long time. Affinity has been superior in many way - except for a couple of color adjustments I was used to with Corel. I don't think I am going back to Corel now.

 

[Electro-harpist]

"My Photoshop is a very old version without any AI tools". UI, not AI. User Interface.

You might try Photoline, which will run on an older system (ignore the "Windows 10 and 11", that's just for support). Little-known but very polished Photoshop clone for photographers, from Germany, with only a limited number of wrinkles that need to be learned.

 

[KageRyu]

"My Photoshop is a very old version without any AI tools". UI, not AI. User Interface.

You might try Photoline, which will run on an older system (ignore the "Windows 10 and 11", that's just for support). Little-known but very polished Photoshop clone for photographers, from Germany, with only a limited number of wrinkles that need to be learned.

No, I meant AI as in the AI tools others had referenced Affinity does not have - such as things like Generative Fill, and in newer updates complete AI image generation from prompt. My version of Photoshop long predates any of these, so it is not a concern to me if they are not present in other software, I will not miss them having never used them.

 

[Ken1171]

That's correct - neither PaintShop nor Affinity ship with AI tools. But if I want AI, I have it installed separately in my computer and do the things there. Once I get what I want, I bring it into Affinity. Eventually, ALL image editors will include AI tools. It's just a matter of time. However, I find current AI tools rather limited and censored comparing to the free alternatives I have installed standalone. It's a matter of what's more important to you.